An acclaimed biographer and literary conservator, Matthew J. Bruccoli was the author of many books about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, including Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1981), Conversations with Ernest Hemingway (1986), and Fitzgerald and Hemingway: A Dangerous Friendship (1994). He was a professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina, where he has established a world-renowned collection of Fitzgerald papers and manuscripts.
Maureen Corrigan is the book critic for NPR's Fresh Air. Her reviews and essays have appeared in many publications including The New York Times, Newsday, and The Nation. She regularly writes a mystery column for The Washington Post and teaches literature at Georgetown University. In 2005, Corrigan published Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband and daughter.
Dana Gioia, the former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, is an acclaimed poet, critic, and literary anthologist. His third collection of poetry, Interrogations at Noon (2001), won the American Book Award. He has also written collections of essays, including Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture (1992; 2002) and Disappearing Ink: Poetry at the End of Print Culture (2004).
Andrew Sean Greer is the author of the novels The Path of Minor Planets (2001) and The Confessions of Max Tivoli (2004), and a collection of short stories, How It Was for Me (2000). He is a recipient of the the California Book Award, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in San Francisco.
A second-generation Chinese-American, Gish Jen is the author of the novels Typical American (1991), Mona in the Promised Land (1996), and The Love Wife (2004), and a collection of short stories, Who's Irish? (1999). Jen is a recipient of the Lannan Award for Fiction and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Actor-director Robert Redford is best known for roles in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Way We Were (1973), The Sting (1973), The Great Gatsby (1974), The Natural (1984), Out of Africa (1985), and Lions for Lambs (2007). He won an Oscar for directing Ordinary People (1980). With grant support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Redford created the Sundance Institute in 1980, whose film festival and workshops earned him an honorary Oscar in 2002.
Known to most Americans as D.A. Jack McCoy on Law & Order, Sam Waterston has enjoyed a diverse acting career. His performance as Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby (1974) received Golden Globe nominations for best supporting actor and most promising newcomer. A eight-time Emmy Award nominee, he won for hosting Lost Civilizations (1995) and received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor in The Killing Fields (1984). Waterston lives in Connecticut with his family.
